Customer Reviews

Microsoft ISA Server 2006 Unleashed

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Considering this book was months late, I would have thought that it would have covered the protection and configuration of Microsoft messaging product Exchange 2007. Alas, it only covers Exchange 2003. Exchange 2007 RTM has been out for a year, so the absence of Exchange 2007 security and reverse proxy - and the lack of support of mobile device (ActiveSync) security makes this book unacceptable to me. My experience with ISA 2006 is to combine it with other applications. Messaging applications and collaboration applications are the biggest type of applications ISA protects. So coverage of these types of products is mandatory. Yes, it covers ISA 2006 itself well, but as more companies deploy SharePoint 2007 and Exchange 2007, this book is outdated immediately the day it was published because of it's lack of 2007 coverage. Since this will likely be the only third-party book published covering ISA 2006, by itself it is a disappointment. If you are new to the ISA product, then this book will give you the basics. If you are looking to truly dive deep into protecting complex applications such as Exchange 2007, pass on this one. Dedicate your research to Microsoft TechNet and blogs on the treatment of ISA and the products you are protecting and you'll do much better.

This book is well done but useless. It is a combination advertisement for ISA, screenshots of all of the wizards in the application, and summaries of the "Getting Started..." portions of the ISA help files. It took me about 1 hour of working with ISA to get familiarized with it to cover ever topic that this book covers. It has *nothing* to help you if things don't work exactly as expected. Don't spend money on this book unless you are completely unknowledgable about firewalls, routing, VPNs, etc.

The book includes good content, however the author needed to create more visual material. If you want to apply all concepts, install a virtual enviroment using VMWare Workstation 6.5/7.

In this book, the writer kept repeating the same general and worthless information again and again; forgetting the time value of those how need to read about such a strategic Microsoft security product. My advice is to find a book from Microsoft to explain their ISA or the new TMG security product.

A. Boules
10/12/2009
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